Rotten trunks which had fallen across the stream we dragged out and piled up across the mouth of the pass to make a defence; but we could do no more than that; and, our efforts ended, my Indians sat in a circle cross-legged, quietly hooping and stretching their freshly taken scalps by the dim light of the stars, and humming their various airs of triumph in low, contented, and purring voices.

All laboured under subdued excitement, the brief and almost silent slaughter in the ferns having thoroughly aroused them.
But the tension showed only in moments of abrupt gaiety, as when Mayaro challenged them to pronounce his name, and they could not, there being no letter "M" in the Iroquois language--neither "P" nor "B" either, for that matter--so they failed at "Butler" too, and Philip Schuyler, which aroused all to nervous merriment.
The Yellow Moth finished braiding his trophy first, went to the stream, and washed the blood from his weapons and his hands, polished up knife and hatchet, freshened his priming and covered it, and then, being a Christian, said his prayers on his knees, rolled over on his blanket, and instantly fell asleep.
One by one the others followed his example, excepting the Sagamore, who yawning with repressed excitement, picked up his rifle, mounted the abattis, and squatted there, his chin on a log, motionless and intent as a hunting cat in long grass.

I joined him; and there we sat unstirring, listening, peering ahead into the mist-shot darkness, until our three hours' vigil ended.
Then we noiselessly summoned the Grey-Feather, and he crept up to the log defence, rifle in hand, to sit there alone until his three hours' duty was finished, when the Yellow Moth and Tahoontowhee should take his place.
It was already after sunrise when I was awakened by the tinkle of a cow-bell.

A broad, pinkish shaft of sunshine slanted through the pass into the hidden valley; and for the first time in my life I now beheld the Vale Yndaia in all the dewy loveliness of dawn.

A milch cow fed along the brook, flank-deep in fern.